Milking It For All That It is Worth

What the heck is going on? Why does everything in life have to be a domino effect? Today I’m talking specifically about milk prices. The dairy industry has not seen very good times lately. A few years ago we had one good year. It takes a long time to dig out from a few bad years, even when you have one good year. And, those good years are few and far between anymore.

Let me explain more specifically what happens when a farmer has a good year. When milk prices are up and the other prices intertwined with farming are stable and not excessively high, a farmer’s “extra” money is sometimes banked for emergency purposes, or it is spent. Most of the time it is spent. It is spent on the repairs that have been overlooked when milk prices were low; it is spent on the machinery that needs to be replaced because it is broken or has been fixed one too many times. It is spent on things that help a farm run more efficiently, things that may aid a farmer in backbreaking chores, and sometimes on things that were badly needed for the house. When you farm, the house is usually the last thing on the list. Farmers will spend their money locally. They will go to their nearest town to buy feed and purchase supplies or machinery. They will help the local economy grow and prosper. Farmers don’t usually get a chance to take extravagant vacations because a vacation to a farmer means that any time he is gone he is spending hundreds of dollars a day hiring someone else to do his/her work which does not include the money a farmer is spending while on and for his vacation. So a farmer’s time off will usually be spent close by.

My husband, Bob, has not had a vacation in probably thirteen years. After putting in a milking parlor almost five years ago, last summer he had finally decided it was time he should take a milking off here or there. That is one milking out of a seven-day work week – which as it turned out, he only took a couple times. For him (us) to take a milking off, it is a big deal because it costs money to do that.

Anyway, my gripe goes back to the low milk prices we have been experiencing. This last year was a hard year on most farmers. Some didn’t make it through. Those that did have to find ways to improvise, to be thrifty or to find out how to improve production to make up for the dollars lost with the lower milk prices. By the end of 2009 milk prices started to increase, slowly but surely. When milk prices are high, the public hears about it and reacts accordingly when they talk to a farmer. I have heard many a “so the farmers are doing pretty well now since milk prices are high” – all the while gritting my teeth because some will try to blame a higher grocery price on the farmer because of this increase in their pay price. People never talk about low prices. In fact, some only remember the high prices thinking that it is still there when it fell down the well long ago. Farmers are not your typical wage earner where if you get a raise in pay, you keep it. I’m a wage worker out in the real world and I try to inform those around me of the difference.

I look at the milk markets almost daily at the end of the day to see where they settled at. I mark them in my little notebook which I carry in my purse and tell Bob later at night when I get home. He usually watches or tries to catch the markets at noon but that isn’t always a true reading as it can change quite drastically in the next few hours. City folks have heard in the last couple months that milk prices are on the rise again. Well, they were, but they aren’t anymore. Hence, my concern of the domino effect.

As I mentioned before most farmers right now have tried to increase production to make up for the lost dollars and cents on the hundredweight of milk. Here are some facts for you about production in the last few months. Milk production in the 23 major states during January totaled 14.8 billion pounds, down 0.6 percent from January 2009.

Production per cow in the 23 major (dairy) states averaged 1,782 pounds for January, 30 pounds above January 2009. The number of milk cows on farms in the 23 major (dairy) states was 8.32 million head, 191,000 head less than January 2009, but 4,000 head more than December 2009.

Wisconsin was up 4.7 percent, thanks to a 70 pound gain per cow and 5,000 more cows. Minnesota was up 3.6 percent on a 50 pound gain per cow and 2,000 more cows.

California was down 2.4 percent, due to 72,000 less cows but production was up 30 pounds per cow from a year ago.

New York was down 1.3 percent. Idaho was up 1.5 percent, with a decrease of 4,000 cows, but output was up 40 pounds per cow. Pennsylvania output was down 1.7 percent from a year ago, with 9,000 less cows.

The biggest increase was Washington state, up 5 percent followed by Wisconsin and Minnesota. The biggest decline occurred in Colorado, down 10.4 percent due to a 13,000 fewer cows and 10 pounds less production per cow. Arizona was next, down 10.9 percent with 22,000 fewer cows. Kansas was next, down 8 percent followed by Arizona, down 7.5 percent.

That is a lot of statistics to digest but the bottom line is that we Wisconsinite farmers lead the pack in that we increased our production because we had to. We wanted (and needed) to keep our boat afloat. (It is a simple law among farmers). But the problem is when you increase production it puts more milk on the market and – here it comes, folks, the domino effect – milk prices go down! We work harder to get paid less for the work we have just done. Sounds funny, doesn’t it! But that is life on the farm – you work hard to earn a buck but you are lucky if you get twenty-five cents out of that. One month it might be a quarter, the next a dime.

Remember this the next time you drink a glass of milk. You are drinking something that the farmer sweated over harder and harder each day to get paid less and less for that work.

I thought I would share some fun facts with you about cows and milk, so not to end on such a sour note. These should come in handy the next time you play some trivia game.

There are approximately 350 squirts in a gallon of milk. The average cow produces about 10 gallons of milk a day in two milkings. A cow gives approximately 200,000 glasses of milk in a lifetime.

Cows were domesticated 5,000 years ago. The first cows arrived in the United States in 1611.

Cows can hear lower and higher frequencies better than humans. Cows can see color.
A cow can detect odors up to 5 miles away.

The average cow drinks about 30 gallons of water and eats about 95 pounds of feed per day.

Cows have 32 teeth, but they don’t have any top front teeth.

Every day, a cow spends 6 hours eating, 8 hours chewing her cud, stands up and lies down 14 times a day, and she also has four stomachs.

Boy, now you know a lot more about that glass of milk you are drinking. See, cows are a lot more fun that you thought!!